


Judgment Call

by NyteFlyer



Category: Donald Strachey Mysteries (Movies)
Genre: Canon Gay Relationship, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-20
Updated: 2013-01-20
Packaged: 2017-11-26 05:53:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/647286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NyteFlyer/pseuds/NyteFlyer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Timmy wishes he were a better judge of character.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Judgment Call

I suppose it’s fair to say that politics is in my blood. 

My father is a Republican congressman. His father was, too, and my great-grandfather served three terms in the senate. Sharp-minded decision makers all, each attributed his success to one common factor: They were exemplary judges of character.

From as far back as I can remember, people have assured me that I am not. 

I do well enough in a professional capacity, of course. I have to. As a political aide, I spend a good deal of time acting as a P.R. man, fielding offers and requests, suggestions and complaints, not only hearing a speaker’s words but listening for and evaluating the greater truth behind them. It’s an acquired skill that relies on analytical observation of speech patterns and body language, a solid working knowledge of human psychology, and an elusive element I can only describe as gut instinct. Over the years, I think I’ve become pretty competent at it, so much so that some of the most influential men and women in the state have trusted me to help propel their careers and safeguard their interests. 

I just wish I had the same gift for safeguarding my own.

For many years, my love life resembled a comedy of errors, though in the end no one was laughing, least of all me. I don’t have a naturally suspicious nature. It’s not who I am, and for the most part, that’s just fine with me. I like being a nice person, a kind and accepting person. I like being me, even if that does mean occasionally missing warning flags other people seem to spot so effortlessly. Most of the time, my faulty judgment calls result in nothing worse than a badly bruised ego, though once I had to cover minor -- though considerably more tangible -- souvenirs of a date gone awry with the time-honored “I walked into a doorframe” excuse. 

In addition to being a poor judge of character, I’m an uninspired liar, it would seem.

“You’re too trusting,” my friends told me. “You take everything and everyone at face value. You’re a walking magnet for losers, users, and abusers. Come on, Tim, how can a sharp guy like you be so naïve?”

I really wished I knew. After the “doorframe” incident, my self-confidence reached an all-time low. I found myself spending most of my evenings home alone, huddled under a blanket in front of the television, drowning my sorrows in vodka martinis and endless marathons of Turner Classic Movies. 

It wasn’t as if I never received any offers. I was constantly fielding invitations to dinners and plays, weekend getaways and even -- God forbid -- sporting events. I know I’m a reasonably attractive guy, and I try to be friendly and outgoing and a good listener. People respond to that. But who should I say yes to and who should I turn down with a polite, yet very firm, no? Who genuinely liked me and who simply wanted sex? Who shared my interests and who only pretended to? Who should I feel safe with and who represented a hidden danger? Every time I accepted a date, I seemed to be taking both my life and my heart into my hands. 

The moment I met that walking contradiction named Donald Strachey, I knew I was treading on dangerous ground. He was nothing at all like my usual type -- short rather than tall, fair rather than dark, slightly younger rather than considerably older, rough-edged rather than refined -- which made my instant, aching attraction to him all the more devastating. He knocked me off balance, this battle-scarred, socially awkward bad boy, and that scared me to death. The only thing that scared me more was the fact that I couldn’t seem to get him off my mind. 

He was wrong for me, absolutely and inarguably wrong on every level and in every way. Even someone as hopelessly optimistic as I am could understand that much. I was a morning person and he was a night owl. I was passionate about social issues, while he remained blissfully, determinedly ignorant that they even existed. I was relentlessly punctual, and his interpretation of time seemed creative at best. While I like to think that we were each warriors in our own way, words and reason have always been my weapons of choice. Donald relied on his fists, both on the job and off. What‘s more, he seemed to enjoy it. 

Dear God, the man actually carried a gun.

The thing that bothered me most, though, was the fact that I’d always longed for what gay men are told we shouldn’t want because it means conforming to the straight standard. I wanted exclusivity. I wanted monogamy and long-term commitment. I wanted marriage -- old-fashioned, boring, conformist marriage to a man who loved me with all his heart and never wanted to be with anyone else. According to local legend, all Donald Strachey wanted was to “get off and get out.” So why did my instincts -- my flawed, unreliable instincts -- assure me that against all odds, the man all of gay Albany called “Mr. Wrong” might just turn out to be my very own Mr. Right? 

* * * *

Before I made a fool of myself and ended up with yet another bruise to my ego or worse, I had to get a grip on my emotions and look at this thing logically. What are the quickest and most effective ways to judge a man’s character? That had been the subject of dinner table discussions in my family for as long as I could remember. My grandfather, the senior statesman, had always claimed it was by the quality of his handshake. 

“You can tell what a man’s made of by the way he grips your hand,” he would say. “Strong men have strong handshakes. If he crushes your hand, it means he’s aggressive and controlling. He’ll push you around if you let him. If his grip’s weak and wishy-washy, it means he is, too. And if he refuses to shake at all, I’d worry if I were you. A man who won’t shake hands like a gentleman is no gentleman at all. He can’t be trusted.”

The first time I met Donald, it was in a professional capacity. He’d been recommended to me by a friend, who assured me he was both competent and discreet and that he charged reasonable rates. Still, considering his reputation, I’d braced myself to deal with someone who was surly and abrasive, or worse, frankly combative. To my surprise, he was courteous and professional. When I made a small joke, he laughed aloud, and his sharp features seemed to soften around the edges, making him seem warm and accessible. In that instant, I realized I liked him a lot. 

I also found him wildly attractive.

He shook my hand when the meeting ended, but only because I initiated it. If he hesitated before taking my outstretched hand in his, he only did so for an instant, recovering so quickly that I wondered later if the hesitation had been a figment of my imagination, a byproduct of my own insecurities. His grip was firm enough to meet Grandfather’s standards, but tellingly brief, so much so that I suppose it should have set off warning bells in my head. 

Still, I didn’t get the impression that it indicated a lack of trustworthiness on his part. Instead, it made me wonder if the reverse were true, if somewhere along the line, he’d lost the capacity to trust. According to the rumor mill, his frequent sexual encounters were fast and to the point, involving a bare-bones minimum of physical contact. Had something happened to him, something so traumatic it made him uncomfortable with intimacy on any level? Perhaps even the everyday act of offering his hand to a stranger required a leap of faith so huge it unnerved him to take it. 

Either way, he was hardly viable relationship material. Yet his hand -- small for a man’s and oddly childlike in spite of its obvious strength -- felt so good to me, and the residual warmth of his palm against mine seemed to linger for hours afterward. Later that night as I lay in bed reading, I paused between pages and brushed my palm with my fingertips, convinced that something of his warmth still remained.

* * * *

“The eyes are more than just the window to the soul,” my mother once told me. “They have direct lines to the heart and head as well. People lie with words and sometimes with actions, but not with their eyes. Never with their eyes.”

Donald Strachey’s eyes were the purest blue I’d ever seen, though it took some time for me to get a direct view of them. During our second meeting, I caught him watching me out of the corner of his eye more than once, though he quickly looked away whenever I noticed. He was checking me out, but in a way that seemed quietly appreciative rather than overtly lewd. I can’t say I minded. I was a healthy gay man in the prime of my life, and I hadn’t had a date in weeks. 

As the meeting progressed, he continued to shoot quick sideways glances in my direction to punctuate what he was saying, but he never actually achieved eye-to-eye contact. It was annoying and disconcerting, to say the least. I could hear my mother’s voice echoing in my head, saying, “Be careful around that man, darling. If he won’t look you in the eye, it’s because he has something to hide.” 

She was right, of course. Donald was hiding something, and that something was pain. As we got to know each other, he gradually relaxed and allowed me to gaze into those wide, bright eyes of his. What I saw there was such a mixed bag of anger and intelligence and grief and humor and naked longing that I knew it would take a lifetime to sort it all out. 

Secrets. He was a man of secrets. They weren’t the type that would hurt me, I decided, but they plagued him, lurking in the dark and lonely corners of his mind. I wanted to know each one of them, to expose them for what they were, to force them out of the shadows and into the light. More than anything else, I wanted to see the look in his eyes as he watched them turn to ash and blow away like B-movie vampires in the morning sun. 

* * * *

“Shoes,” my father had often reminded me. “You can tell everything you need to know about a man when you look at his shoes.” 

As far as I could tell, Donald only owned one pair of shoes, nondescript black oxfords made of that abomination known as “pleather.” Every bit as worn out and uncared for as his frayed tie, threadbare jacket and rumpled trousers, they’d obviously been down a long, hard road. They looked tired and uncomfortable and on the verge of falling apart. When he caught me staring at them, his cheeks colored. In a gesture that tugged almost painfully at my heart, he began rubbing the creased toe of his right shoe against the back of his left pants leg as if he hoped to bring back a little of its long-lost shine. I found myself longing to bring back a little of his, as well.

* * * *

“A man who can’t keep his money straight in his wallet isn’t a man at all,” my maternal grandfather, a self-made businessman, was fond of saying. “He’s nothing but an animal. He’s unorganized and he’s sloppy. He’s got no respect for himself, and he’ll have no respect for you. Show me somebody who can’t be bothered to put his bills in order and face them, and I’ll show you somebody who can’t be bothered to wipe his own ass.” 

The first time Donald and I went out to dinner and a movie, he insisted on paying. I felt bad about it, because I could tell from his clothes and his dilapidated deathtrap of a car that he hardly had money to burn. Still, it gave me a chance to put Grampa Al’s theory to the test. I was a few inches taller than he was, so when he fished out a twenty for our movie tickets, I was able to see the contents of his wallet quite clearly. The wallet itself was in worse shape than his shoes, but as he did a quick inventory of its contents, I could see that they were immaculate. A few ones, a five and a ten, and three more twenties were lined up in ascending order, all as neatly faced as the contents of a bank teller’s drawer. Obviously, his personal hygiene had to be above reproach.

I didn’t have to see inside his wallet to know that, of course. Standing right beside him in that packed line of moviegoers, I could smell his cheap aftershave and a hint of shampoo, but all the discount store toiletries in the world couldn’t hide the faint, slightly sweet earthiness of Donald himself. He smelled like autumn mornings and sunlight and the promise of sex. Forgetting myself, I closed my eyes briefly and simply breathed, captivated by his pheromonal mating call. 

He cleared his throat. My eyes flew open, and I felt a prickle of heat spread across my face. One dark blond eyebrow arched upward, and a grin he seemed to be fighting to suppress broke free, transforming his quirky good looks into something so beautiful and perfect it took my breath away. What could I do? 

I grinned back.

* * * *

When I look back on the people who’ve had the greatest influence in my life, my grandmother, Liz, invariably tops the list. She taught me to appreciate good music -- though I never had her gift for making it -- and how to waltz, how to discreetly nap with my eyes open when the conversation was dull and how to tend bar like a pro. She was my co-conspirator and my confidant, and she seldom let more than a handful of days pass without calling me for some late-night dish.

“So the congressman’s wife wasn’t cheating on him after all?” she said. “A pity. I’ve known Morley Fletcher since he and your father were caught skinny-dipping with the Jansen sisters at their eighth grade graduation party. He was no prize back then, and I shudder to think what time and gravity have done to him by now. His wife is a lovely girl, and she could have done better.”

“Somehow, I have a hard time imagining either my boss or my father naked, let alone naked outdoors during a social event.”

“Block it from your mind,” she advised. “Republicans were never meant to remove their clothes either in public or in private. In Morley’s case, they should have been spot-welded to his body the second he entered puberty.”

“Grandfather was a Republican,” I reminded her.

“What are you drinking?”

I swirled the pale liquid in my glass and took a sip before answering. “A moderately priced Riesling. You?”

“A martini, of course. Katie made a pitcher before retiring. Hers are passable, but decidedly sub-par compared to yours. Your grandfather may have been a Republican, but he was an exception to the rule. In spite of his misguided political affiliations, he was a truly remarkable man, and he stripped like a God. But that’s neither here nor there. I want to hear about him.”

“Him? Which him do you mean, Grandmother?”

“You’ve never been able to bluff worth a damn; that’s why I always beat you at poker. I’m referring to that handsome young detective….”

“He’s a private investigator, actually.”

“Don’t correct your elders. It isn’t polite. I mean that handsome young man you hired to follow the honorable Mrs. Fletcher, of course. The one you’ve been terribly careful not to mention during this conversation.”

Elizabeth Callahan, Bloodhound At Large. I smiled and sipped my drink. “How do you know he’s handsome?”

“Because I know you. Now stop beating around the bush and share a little gossip. Have the two of you -- What’s the term they use now? -- hooked up yet?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Then what is it like, precisely?”

I wasn’t precisely sure, and I told her as much. “We’ve had lunch together a couple of times and talked on the phone quite a bit. We took a short walk in the park one afternoon when he was between meetings with clients, and that was nice. One night we shared a dance. We’ve only been on one official date, though.”

“And?”

I was grateful she couldn’t see the big, foolish smile that spread across my face, though knowing Grandmother, she probably heard it loud and clear over the phone line. “And…it was wonderful.”

“It was, or he was?”

“Both.”

“But?”

Have I mentioned that the woman was a bloodhound? “The chemistry is definitely there, but he has issues.”

“Does anyone not have issues?”

“I just don’t know if I can trust my instincts with this one. I’ve made so many bad judgment calls with the men I’ve dated….”

“You haven’t been dating men. You’ve been dating idiots and scoundrels.”

“That‘s my point. How do I know that he’s not one, too?”

“The same way I knew with your grandfather. He’ll touch you.”

“They all touched me, Grandmother.”

“Stop pretending to be obtuse, because I’m not buying into it. He’ll touch you in a way no one’s ever touched you before. You’ll know it when it happens, my dear. And you’ll never doubt that he’s the one again.”

After we said goodnight, I decided to turn the television on while I savored the rest of my wine, but I couldn’t seem to concentrate on what I was watching. I was thinking of Donald, of course, and of what my grandmother had said. I knew she hadn’t been referring to physical touches, but even in that regard, he was in a completely different league from his predecessors. He wasn’t the most articulate man I’d ever dated, but there was something about the way his fingers curled around mine in the theater, the way he lightly pressed his hand against the small of my back as he held a door open for me or took my elbow as we crossed the street that communicated his feelings more effectively than words ever could. 

Other men had gone through the motions of being chivalrous, of course, but with them, the gestures had seemed heavy-handed and forced, a slightly condescending territorial display staged for the benefit of whoever might be watching. With Donald, it all seemed natural and respectful and surprisingly tender. He may have been a diamond in the rough, but he was still a diamond, all the same. 

We went out on our second date a few nights later, and of course, that’s the night that will live forever in infamy. In spite of the fact that I was absolutely furious with him and humiliated through and through, I confiscated his keys and drove him home. As much as I would have liked to have left him slumped inside that cold and cramped little car to sleep it off, I saw him safely inside his apartment, even going so far as to steady him as he vomited those fourteen martinis he’d guzzled and murmur reassurances while he clung to me and moaned. Once he was done, I cleaned him up as well as I could, then wrestled him out of his clothes and poured him into bed. 

I was bathing his face with a cool cloth, wondering how I could get a cab at that hour and if I even had enough cash on me to cover the fare if I did, when he wormed one hand free of the covers and touched my cheek with trembling fingers. 

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

That makes two of us, I wanted to say. But something in that shaky voice and even shakier touch made me bite the words back, and I simply nodded instead.

“I hurt you,“ he said. “Never gonna forgive myself for hurting you.” 

His hand fell away, and he rolled onto his side, facing the wall. Yet the ghost of his touch remained, tingling like a phantom limb. I thought again of our first date, of how gentle and considerate he’d been and how good he’d made me feel. I was still angry and my feelings were hurt, but not to the point where it erased the sense of potential -- the sense of absolutely rightness -- I felt when his eyes or hands or lips met mine. In a moment of absolute clarity, I realized that if I walked out on him, I’d spend the rest of my life aching for a part of myself I’d left behind. 

If he couldn’t forgive himself, I suppose I had to do it for him. 

I slipped off my jacket and shoes and placed my folded glasses on the nightstand, then climbed into bed and spooned with him, my chest pressed against his back and my arms encircling him in a loose embrace. “Just give me fair warning if you think you’re going to throw up again,” I grumbled. “I don’t have a change of clothes with me, and when we passed your floor’s laundry room, I noticed an Out of Order sign on the door. It would be a long, cold bus ride back to my side of town in nothing but a topcoat and a pair of socks.” 

The chills had set in, and now his whole body was shaking. He hugged my arms to his chest. “I know you‘re really pissed at me,” he said, his teeth chattering. “You should be pissed. Why are you letting me off the hook?”

“I’m not letting you off. You’re going to be hearing about this night for a long time to come.”

He was quiet after that, but I knew he wasn’t sleeping. I’d thrown him for a loop, and considering how much alcohol he‘d consumed over the course of the evening, it was probably going to take a while for him to process it. Finally, he said, “I thought you were going to leave me. I’d leave me. I was a real asshole tonight. I wouldn‘t blame you, you know. If you walked out the door and never came back.”

“Believe me, I thought about it.” 

He rolled over so he could see me, and the look on his face was so lost and confused I felt the last of my anger dissipate. I tugged him closer and wrapped him in my arms again. He didn‘t smell like autumn mornings and sunlight anymore, but I supposed I could deal with it. 

“It’s all right, baby,” I said. 

“But what made you decide….”

“Let’s just say that after weighing all the evidence at my disposal, I made a judgment call.”

As it turns out, it was the smartest one I ever made.


End file.
